text: Scheduled desludging is a planned effort by the local government or utility to ensure regular desludging of septic tanks. In this process, every property is covered along a defined route and the property occupiers are informed in advance about desludging that will take place. The actual desludging (or emptying of septic tanks) can be done through a public private partnership (PPP) arrangement.
  In Southeast Asia, there is (in 2016) increasing interest in scheduled desludging programs as a means of providing services. A WSP study recommended that efforts to introduce scheduled emptying should focus first on areas where demand was greatest, moving on to other areas when the success of scheduled emptying had been demonstrated in these areas. Analysis of pit and tank desludging records for Palu in Indonesia revealed that existing demand for desludging services varied between sub-districts, with demand being greatest in well-established areas and least in urban fringe areas.
  There are multiple benefits of scheduled desludging services in the Indian context: Achieves the norms through regular desludging, reduces high prices of desludging, removes the need for manual labor, improves environmental and public health impacts, links with local taxes rather than with user charges. Scheduled desludging has been initiated in several Asian counties including the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. A program by SNV (Netherlands Development Organisation) has developed scheduled emptying services in Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh as part of a broader urban sanitation program during 2014–2017.